Sacrifice
by Lethe2
Summary: A pre-temple LSF Revan foresees Carth's death if she fights for the light side.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars.

Summary: A pre-temple LSF Revan foresees Carth's death if she fights for the light side.

Sacrifice

_**She saw the shot from the corner of her eye. **_

_**It was one of the many blaster bolts being peppered at them as they fought their way through what could only be the Star Forge. Covered in sweat, she was fighting two force-wielding Sith at once and could only give minimal attention to where the blaster bolt was going. Somehow, she managed to follow its path to where it entered through Carth's ragged armor and pierce his skin. He gasped and his body jerked and fell to the ground. **_

_**Trained and battle-hardened as she was she didn't even flinch as she continued fighting. Reacting in battle meant death. **_

_**She could hear a desperate breath. **_

_**She was fighting a Sith trooper now. Canderous was off to her left and down, struggling fiercely with two more. He hadn't flinched either. **_

_**Another breath. **_

_**Two more Sith apprentices where on their way. She met them with her lightsaber. **_

_**A very weak breath. **_

_**She didn't know when this would end. They just kept on coming. **_

_**By the time they had finished, the body was cold. **_

Revan woke up in a rush. She was lying on her claustrophobic bunk on the Ebon Hawk. No one had been there to see. They undoubtedly would have been worried as Carth had been when she was lying unconscious at Taris. Force dreams were never pretty with her. And she knew it had been a force dream. She wondered for a moment if Bastila had shared it. Then she remembered, Bastila's with Malak.

Force dreams had always seemed to find her. She remembered that now. Some Jedi meditated in hopes of seeing the future. Whether she meditated or not the force seemed to creep up on her just when she'd let down her guard. They'd been random and disorienting as a child. As an adult they had had one purpose. To show her what she needed to sacrifice.

Revan had been famous for her blood sacrifices. Her feints and abandonments had caused the deaths of many soldiers. Had she lost she would have been called cruel or incompetent. But she had won. That had made her a hero to the galaxy. But Revan had never thought of herself as a hero. She was someone who did what needed to be done. She was someone who could do what needed to be done.

Most people, even those very close to her (Malak, for instance) had assumed that Revan's strategic decisions, or in other words who would die, had depended on the brilliance of a calculating mind. They never knew the torture it was to give those commands. Or the fact that she didn't choose the targets at all. Oh, certainly some of it had been her. Especially after the beginning. In the beginning she hadn't wanted to sacrifice anyone. But she had learned the hard way. And the really brilliant decisions, the ones that it was almost impossible to predict the consequences of beforehand, that was the Force.

Sometimes she thought she was just a pawn to the Force. But it had been her who made the calls. She could have disobeyed the force, or even walked away. But she had been a war leader. She had called for victory at all costs. How much of the old Revan was in her?

Could she sacrifice Carth?


	2. Chapter 2

Revan moved to get up. She had a mission to command. Today they were supposed to take out The One. She didn't think it would be an overly challenging mission. The only question was rather they could find an alternative to killing him. Jedi were taught to find alternatives.

Entering the main area of the ship she started as she saw her pilot.

"Good morning." said Carth, smiling, "Those parts you found are really helping. The repairs are going well."

"What repairs?" asked Revan stupidly. The sight of a walking talking healthy Carth was unsettling her. It wasn't as if she hadn't known he was alive and on the ship but experiencing that was a different matter.

"The repairs on the ship," said Carth slowly, "Are you ok?"

He was obviously concerned, which just made it all worse.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just slept too long, that's all." And I need to get away from here before I hug you.

"Come on everybody, we'd better get going. The One's waiting." She meant to say it in a dignified leader voice but it ended up sounding high-on-spice peppy.

This was not going to be a good day.

"Juhani. Canderous. You're with me."

There was something about Canderous that made Revan feel a certain kinship with him. He was as much the average Mandalorian as Revan was the average Jedi. And one of the first things she had noticed about him was that he took in everything but said little. Canderous was insightful. She had a feeling his warnings about this planet were right on target.

And now he was watching her. She knew he knew that something was off. But she wasn't ready to share yet. Didn't know quite how she felt about this yet.

She didn't want Carth to die. That was obvious. But what could she do to avoid it? Early on in the wars, once, when the Force demanded a particularly gruesome sacrifice she had disobeyed it. She had seen a group of soldiers trapped, starving and getting eaten by animals and quicksand for weeks until they were all dead. She had entered Mandalorian space to save them. The Mandalorians had been waiting for that. Instead of 80 of her people, 3,000 had died on that planet, everyone but her. And she herself would have died if another Jedi hadn't braved the blockade to save her. A man later exiled by the Jedi Order.

She would never understand why the Jedi couldn't understand the sacrifices they had made, they had all made, in the war. Did they think it had been easy?

The One was dead. Despite her vaulted intelligence and charisma she had been unable to think of an alternative or gain a diplomatic solution. _It's too easy to kill_, one of her old masters had said. Revan, who had slaughtered hundreds just in the past few months (never mind the rest of her life) didn't think so. It's not easy to kill.

"Hey! Why are you staring at the wall? Is it a new Jedi thing?"

"Ah, sorry Mission. I was just thinking."

"You think too much if you ask me. Sometimes you've just got to go for it. Wink. Wink."

"You're right Mission. It's time I followed my dream of starting a Gizka circus. And this planet is the perfect training ground. Think I can get the cannibals to come?"

"Ha. Ha. You know that's not what I meant. Isn't there a certain guy you like?"

Mission had the distinctive ability of making her feel like she was a junior padawan again. It wasn't such a bad thing.

"Whether I like him or not is not important. We've got a universe to save."

"Forget the universe."

"I thought you didn't like Carth. I thought you thought he was old and boring."

"Well he is. But he has good qualities too. And anyway, who said I was talking about Carth? Maybe you should date HK-47. He thinks you're awesome. And he can kill anyone who hits on you." 

"That's my fondest dream, really Mission. After this is all over we can settle down on a nice planet and start a family."

"Aww. That'd be cute," squealed Mission happily.

"What would be cute?" asked Carth, entering the cockpit.

Mission giggled and she covered easily (and lamely) with, "Gizka, gizka are cute. I was thinking about adopting one as a pet."

"I think with have enough Gizka as it is."

"Ah, but I was going to train this one to do tricks. You know, how to jump over a lightsaber and things like that."

"I'm pretty sure that's against the Jedi code," the deep voice belonged to Jolee, "Those old boring masters don't realize how hard it is to train an animal. But forget that for now Revan, have you forgot that we need to go back to the Rakatan?"


	3. Chapter 3

No, Revan had not forgotten, as she suspected Jolee knew already. Revan never forgot anything. She was after all, a strategist first. Everything she did had meaning. She was actually delaying because she wasn't sure she was ready to enter the Temple. But she realized she could no longer wait.

"You're right Jolee, my daydreams of a Gizka circus will have to wait for another day. Jolee. Carth. Let's go."

She wasn't certain about her wisdom in taking Carth along with her. The truth was that she wanted to be around him. But she kept on acting somewhat oddly.

"Revan? Are you sure this is the right way?"

"Um...no. I think I took a wrong turn. The sun must have, been glaring wrong or something...all these beaches look alike."

"You never seemed to lose your way on Taris, or Tatooine, or the other planets."

"Yeah, Carth. But I'd been to all those planets before. Even if I didn't remember it at the time."

"Ah, right." Carth agreed although it sounded to her a lot like that time Bastila lost her lightsaber and got captured by Taris gang thugs.

...Or the time Bastila decided to lock herself in a room with Malak when she couldn't possibly beat him. Or of course, that little incident where Bastila saved a Sith Lord from impending death and forged a bond between her and that Sith Lord. All foolish. But Revan was an old enough Jedi to recognize the workings of the Force in that foolishness.

Battle Meditation was a rare gift. The force undoubtedly had something special planed for Bastila to give her that specific power. But with the force's favor came pain. Revan knew Bastila was suffering at the hands of Malak. And there was nothing she could do about it. Bastila would have to endure the torture, it was another sacrifice the Force had demanded. Revan could only hope now to get Bastila back alive.

She had made it to the Rakatan, and back to the ship. The priests would start the ceremony when she herself came to the courtyard. They had chosen to trust her again despite her previous betrayal. They were unsuspicious for an ancient race of conquerors. Revan wished she could be sure she wouldn't let them down. But she wasn't.

"I don't think you should be going to the Temple alone, Revan," said a familiar voice from behind her.

"I'll be fine, Carth. I can take care of a few Sith, it's not a big deal."

"It's not the Sith I'm worried about. Not really. I know it sounds paranoid but there's something about that Temple. I just have a bad feeling about it."

She kept her back to Carth. What could she say? I have a bad feeling about it too and I think I might be turning to the dark side again? This is how it happened before.

"Revan? Look at me, please?"

"Carth, I...I have to go to the Temple. If I don't we'll lose Bastila. I'm sure about that."

And she was. Every force instinct she had said she must go to the Temple to save Bastila. And time was wasting.

"I know you have to go. But you don't have to go alone. You don't have to be alone in this."

Carth had been fighting to have her look at him and he finally succeeded in catching her shoulders and placing himself in her line of sight. She looked him in the eye.

"No, Carth. I do have to be alone. That's what I've remembered. To serve the Force, to follow my destiny, I can't have anyone with me."

She moved his hands and walked away. There'd been hurt in his eyes but when he spoke his voice was steady.

"You fell last time Revan. Was that your destiny?"


	4. Chapter 4

The trip to the Temple courtyard was slow and depressing. The sun was shinning, the Gizka were frolicking, but everything was just too quiet and grim for Revan.

She could remember why she'd fallen the first time. The guilt and pain of so many deaths. So many, many, sacrifices to the will of the Force. And it had to mean something. For her to ensure that, she had to have power.

She was trying to ignore what Carth had said to her. Although Revan remembered her life as a Jedi, she still didn't remember much of her time as a Sith Lord. She didn't want to remember it. She could almost believe that Darth Revan had been a bad Force dream. As if the suffering she'd caused hadn't been real. But it had.

Revan had chosen the dark side and then become unable to revoke that choice as the corruption of the Star Forge controlled her. And her determination to make those early sacrifices mean something had just caused more sacrifices. Millions and millions of deaths. Until now she had been able to convince herself that her fall to the dark side had been necessary.

_"You fell last time Revan. Was that your destiny?" _

The Temple was ominous. And despite her bravado earlier, Revan was glad that she hadn't entered alone. She was relieved to have been joined by Jolee and Juhani at their own insistence. Putting Carth's words out of her thoughts she focused her mind on the moment in order to fight the fledgling Sith infesting the Temple. Revan ignited her lightsaber and entered the fray.

Finally they reached the roof and Revan was suddenly aware of a presence. _Bastila._

_She's here. And she's a Sith. _

Revan struggled to control herself. _It's nothing you didn't suspect_. It was a logical thing for Malak to try to turn Bastila. Her Battle Meditation made her very powerful and beyond that it would be a psychotically blow to the light side. But Malak was less strategic than the former Darth Revan. He had not considered that a dark side Bastila would be eager to follow a dark side Revan. The force bond between them, if nothing else, would assure that. _Was it the bond? Did I doom Bastila myself?_ Perhaps she had. But in battle it was inconsequential. Bastila was now her enemy. _If there was hope for me, there is hope for her, no matter what happens here. You haven't defeated me Malak. _

Seeing Bastila again and fighting her was exhausting. Technically it had been a victory, she had not given into the dark side and Bastila yet lived. And they could leave the planet now. But in many ways it seemed like she had lost.

She had found herself walking ahead of Jolee and Juhani, trying to clear her head. However, it appeared Jolee was trying to catch up with her. She could have outdistanced him, but it didn't seem to be worth the effort.

"It wasn't your fault you know. Bastila made her own choice. And joining her would only have condemned her, and yourself."

"You considered that I might fall back to the dark side because of the Temple?"

"Because of the Temple. Because of Bastila. Because of anything, really. You were a Sith Lord Revan. But you were also a Jedi hero. You made the right choice. And if anyone can bring Bastila back from the dark side, it's you."

"You helped me Revan," came Juhani's strange accent, "I believed myself beyond redemption and you came along and believed in me, as I once believed in you. You were then and you are now a light of compassion. Bastila will see that too when you meet again. It was why she ran from you this time. Your forgiveness scares her."

"You'll remember who you are Revan. And we'll be there with you."

Revan had not had many friends in her life. She had allies, not friends. Unfortunately, everyone on the Ebon Hawk seemed dead-set on being her friend. Mission. Jolee. HK-47. Yup, that was her, friends with an assassin droid. Well, better than being in love with one.

They could have left the planet already but Revan had ordered them all to sleep and heal their wounds from their time on this strange beach world. Canderous had been scratched by a Rancor's claws. Juhani had a few lightsaber burns and some sort of weird insect had covered Mission's arms in bites. Since she had ordered the droids to power down it was just her wandering aimlessly around the silent ship, trying to avoid facing her thoughts.

"Revan?"

"Carth?" she said surprised, "I thought you were asleep."

"Not happy to see me beautiful? The truth is I wanted to talk to you."

"Really? I think the tactical plans for the Star Forge assault are pretty good. As good as we're going to get anyway."

"Not about assault plans sweetheart. I wanted to talk about you."

"About me?" she straightened slightly, "I'm a light-sider Carth. It's what I have to be, for the galaxy. You were right, I messed up last time. For the sake of everyone I betrayed I won't let myself turn."

"That's just it, Revan. When you said that you got defensive, like you thought I would say you were doomed to be a Sith or spit at you, or something. You've been miserable ever since we got to this planet, like you're flying through a storm cloud and can't see the way out."

"I haven't been..."

"Staring at the walls for hours at a time? Generally being sulky and making terrible jokes to cover it whenever anyone talks to you?"

"Carth. My jokes are not terrible."

"See, there it is again. Usually you're not so transparent. I wondered about you on Taris. I'd never met a rookie who could talk anyone into anything like you."

"I'm not a rookie."

"No. You're a Jedi. And I'm beginning to understand that I know even less than I thought I did about what that means. I don't know if I'll ever understand you, Revan. If I'll ever understand what goes around in your head. But I'm here if you need me. I just, I just want you to know that."

His voice got softer as he said the last part. His eyes were intense and sad, she could tell, even though she had her head tilted down. She could tell he felt defeated, as if he hadn't gotten through what he wanted to say. He finally sighed heavily and started to turn around.

For some reason, she felt a strong desire to ask him a question.

"Carth? What would you say if I told you I'd killed you?"


	5. Chapter 5

_Stupid, stupid Jedi_, she told herself. Why did you ask him that? She looked at his surprised expression and wondered if she could pass it off as a joke. _See? It's another bad joke. Like my story about banthas eating a krayt dragon on Tattoine. Pay no attention._ But Revan rarely did anything she didn't really mean to. Part of her really wanted to ask. After all, she was never going to get an answer from the millions of soldiers she'd sent to their deaths.

Carth had an odd expression on his face now, almost as if he thought she'd gone insane. _It would really simplify things if I had. I wouldn't have to deal with this at all. Or at least, it wouldn't be real. _

"I saw it in a force dream Carth. I've seen deaths in force dreams before. They always come true. I make them come true."

"What do you mean, you make them come true?"

_Now he's going to think I'm evil, more evil than before, me, not the Sith Lord. The Sith Lord had been her decision to save them. _

"I let them happen, help them along, throw the people in the line of fire, **sacrifice them**. I did it when I was the Jedi Hero, I saw visions and they told me what to do. They were what needed to happen for us to win the war. I had the choice between two horrible futures. But **I** chose. And now I have the choice again."

"So you chose to sacrifice lives to win the war?"

"Yes."

"I always knew that."

Revan felt confused by his answer. He said it so simply.

Carth continued, "I know all about your command. Everyone knows about it. It's the Sith Lord I hated, not the Jedi commander, not you."

"But it wasn't me!" Revan was losing control of her emotions. Her voice was raised. "Do you think I wanted to kill those people when I was a commander? Do you think I wanted to leave cities defenseless and let the Mandalorians slaughter the people in the streets? Do you think I wanted to hand pick the soldiers that would die, the faces that I had seen as bloody corpses in my dreams?" Revan hit her chest with one of her fists. "I'm a Jedi. I protect life. I protect the Republic." Her voice became softer. "But no one would help me. The Council just sat in their chairs and said to wait, but the Force was calling me forward. No one understood, no one else was willing to make the decisions necessary to win the war. I had to do it." Revan turned her head down "And so all the blood in on my hands."

"No." Carth said emotionally, holding Revan's shoulders, "No, it's not. I can't absolve you of everything you did as Darth Revan, but I know what it is to be a commander, to make hard choices. The only difference is that you had foreknowledge and I could only guess. Everyone creates the future beautiful, from the builders, to the Mandalorians, to the Republic. Sometimes I think the Jedi, the light side Jedi, exist to make sure we don't all blow ourselves to pieces. They're the only ones who can do that, but they can't make everything right, something will still be..."

"Sacrificed," Interrupted Revan, looking right at him.

Carth moved one of his hands to her cheek and looked straight at her, "If it's me, it's alright."

"I don't want it to be you. I don't want to do this again. I created this future by becoming a Sith Lord. If we go to the Star Forge you will die. If we don't go to the Star Forge the galaxy will suffer."

Revan looked away again, feeling hopeless. _Such a horrible choice. I will never turn to the dark side again. But I suppose we could run or hide. That would be new. But the universe would still be ruled by a Sith Lord, just like the last time. Could I really do that for one man? All the blood on my hands, all those lives spent, in the end for me to throw the galaxy away for my boyfriend, or whatever the Galaxy I should call him? _

"You wouldn't even go, would you? If I asked you to run, to hide, to stay on this planet, you wouldn't do it, would you?"

"No beautiful, I wouldn't. I'm a soldier too. Even if the force says I'm fated to die, I'm not the kind of person who can run away while the woman I lo…, goes off to save the galaxy."

Carth continued, "You're not alone, Revan. I know you think you are. I know you've spent too much time alone recently and probably since you became a Jedi. But you're not alone. Everyone on this ship would tell you the same thing. Soldiers only dislike commanders who would refuse to sacrifice themselves, or who do stupid things that cost lives. I know you wish the force was wrong, I know the absolute knowledge of it is killing you, but we both know you don't make stupid decisions. And you're the bravest woman I've ever known, sith, the bravest woman in the whole galaxy. You already know that everyone on this ship is willing to die for this mission. And if you told them about your force dreams they would all tell you the same thing I'm telling you, it's alright."

Revan felt herself crying. It was an alien feeling, and not unpleasant. She felt like she needed to cry and had long been unable to and the tears leaked down from her eyes.

Carth wiped her tears away when they got to her cheeks. He pressed his forehead to hers and held her. She could not remember ever being treated like this before. Jedi like to pretend they don't have emotions. They like to pretend that there's nothing wrong with the galaxy, even when it's staring them straight in the face.

She realized now why she was in love with Carth. Why a by-the-book Republic soldier was the perfect match for a blood stained Jedi. It had seemed odd to her because she was a strong force sensitive and Carth was force blind. She had started to wonder if he was something she needed to leave behind as she'd left behind the pseudonym the council gave her. But she realized now that that would have been a grave mistake. She loved Carth, not as a rookie solider that didn't exist, but as Revan. Because somehow Carth saw in a way she'd been unable to for most of her life.

It didn't absolve her of all the deaths she'd caused. It didn't make her innocent. It didn't even mean that tomorrow she wouldn't be scraping Carth's cold corpse off the Star Forge's floor. But it meant for the first time since the council had turned its back on her, she had real hope. Hope that the light side was really good and not just slightly better than the alternative. Hope that she was good and could make things better.

"Do you love me Carth?"

The bravest woman in the galaxy didn't want to say it first. Maybe she could blame it on being a Jedi?

Carth looked deep into her eyes and held her chin with one hand so she'd be sure to see him, "Yes, I love you Revan."

Revan answered back quietly, looking him in the eyes, "I love you Carth."

She decided she was brave enough to initiate their first kiss.

The End

A/N: No, it's not an entirely happy ending. It can't really be all sunshine and roses without being untrue to the rest of the story and the Knights of the Old Republic universe. Unless I decide to write a sequel you can choose for yourself whether Carth dies or not. Obviously he lives in light side canon but I'm not sure how to extricate him from the little force vision death dilemma without being trite. I actually finished this story after a hiatus of like 4 or 5 years, so maybe I'll write a sequel in another 4.


End file.
